Destiny
by vandevere
Summary: A General learns the Truth... Part of "An Alien "Verse"
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

 _Krypton 34,033_

The Civil War was over, the monstrous secret behind it all gone; erased from History.

Sul Van, the Savior of Krypton, the Protector of the True People of Krypton, now had the really serious work ahead of him.

Fighting the War, winning all the battles, had been the easy part.

Krypton had been all but destroyed over the course of the War. Only Sul Van, and a few select others had known the truth about this…Civil War.

It hadn't been a Civil War at all.

 _An alien invasion…_

The Rhotokalani.

A hive mind that lived in black oil. Seeds of it had… _invaded…_ the minds and bodies of certain Kryptonians.

From there, the Rhotokalani had been able to…infect millions...

Before long, fully half of the population of the Kryptonian Federation of Worlds became Rhotokalani, became Alien…

 _We won…_

Sul Van had to remind himself of this almost daily.

The price for victory had been steep; all of the Colony Worlds abandoned, left to wither and die.

 _Krypton itself bombed almost to a nuclear wasteland; the death toll leaving billions dead, and more to come in the following Nuclear Winter._

The Chief Scientists had warned that the population could survive only by using the strictest controls.

Further, the Ruling Council had ordered the creation of specific castes; to find an appropriate slot for each individual born in this new-and severely limited-age.

Sul Van understood the reasoning.

 _They don't know it was the Aliens._

They thought the War was due to ambition. Political ambition.

 _They think placing everyone in a caste will limit political ambition, eliminate war. In reality. All it will do is finish what the Rhotokalani started._

 _It will destroy Krypton._

No more dreamers or visionaries.

Religion had been abolished, and philosophy too…

 _They promote thought and belief, and those both promote ambition…_

 _And civil disorder._

There was irony in this.

Sul Van had been a priest, of the Supreme Being of Many Names, a Mystic. He had taught Theology, and Philosophy at the University of Rao Ascendant, before the War.

He'd also had a secret Gift, one he had never spoken of.

Prescience.

The ability to see what was to be before it happened.

 _This_ was what he used to bring those who were pure of Alien Infection to victory.

And that prescience was what he was going to use _now…_

To save Krypton again, in the far future.

 _Even from itself…_

He had seen the Council, fearful of Sul Van's charisma, his power over the Council, deciding to poison him.

So…

 _Two possible courses of action to take. Either I fight the assassination attempt now, and bring more Civil War upon my people-which will destroy Krypton utterly-or take the poisoned wine, die…_

And live again in the far future.

To save Krypton once again…

Sul Van wasn't sure how this could happen. But, he had seen it, in the way he always saw that which was to happen.

He also saw the paths his two best students would take in this future.

 _My best and brightest students, the Scientist, and the General._

 _El and Zod…_

Van sighed, took the goblet of wine offered by the Chief Counselor, Ay Zar.

 _The agony will be brief…_

…..

 _Krypton Eighty years ago_

Dru was six years old today; and he was to meet a very important man.

First thing in the morning, immediately after breakfast, Mother Proctor had arrived to take him for the appointment.

Zor El, Chief Scientist to the Ruling Council, had ordered her to bring the boy to see him.

So, here Dru was, walking by Mother Proctor's side, holding her hand.

Most of the trip had been incredibly exciting, full of momentous firsts.

His first time out of the crèche. His first time on a flying ship. And his first time meeting a member of the House of El.

Dru knew he came from a very important House too.

 _Zod._

He had been told all the stories from history; how a General Zod, and a _Medicus_ El had helped win the Civil War, how they had been friends of the sainted Sul Van.

He had heroes in his blood.

As did this Zor El he was to meet.

"We will be going to Zor El's domicile," Mother Proctor had told him as they set out. "So you must be on your best behavior."

"Yes, Mother Proctor."

Dru kept quiet during the trip, only fidgeting a very little. Then, they were there, the craft landing softly on the pad in front of the El Manor, and the two got out.

"Mother Proctor En Kay, and Dru Zod," a droid servitor hovered ahead. "Please follow me."

So, they followed, Mother Proctor En Kay holding Dru's hand, down to a plain white room with a large table. A tall thin man stood there, in front of the table.

"El…" Mother Proctor bowed formally. "As per your instructions, I have brought Dru Zod here to you."

Dru looked at the man. Thin-featured with plain brownish hair and graying temples. His eyes were a startling blue.

"Hello, Dru," the man said. Then his eyes shifted to Mother Proctor.

"Please leave us, En Kay."

Mother Proctor's hand tightened around Dru's hand.

"Zor El…" she hesitated. "I-"

"I enjoin you to practice the meditation of peace," El commanded. "You know I must do this."

"Mother Proctor?" Dru looked up at En Kay.

"It's all right, Dru," Mother Proctor knelt in front of him. "Mind yourself, and do as he says."

She patted Dru's shoulder, then stood. With one last glance at Zor El, she turned and walked away, leaving Dru alone with El…

…..

 _If only the Council knew…_

Of course, it was absolutely imperative that the Council _not_ know. If the Council ever found out…

 _Exile to the Phantom Zone for me._

 _And, for Dru…_

Death.

The boy stood there, seemingly willing to wait forever.

 _He has presence, I'll grant him that…_

"Come here, boy," El motioned Dru over, and the boy walked up to stand right in front of him, craning his neck to look up.

"No…"El muttered. "This won't do at all."

He stooped and caught Dru under the arms, swept him up to stand on the table.

The boy was scandalized, spots of color on his cheeks.

"We're not supposed to stand on tables," he spoke uncertainly.

"Just this once, Dru. I wanted to look you in the eye. Look at me."

The boy met his gaze, and there was only the merest hint of quailing…

Dark eyes, under thick black brows, and a cap of black hair. Those eyes regarded him steadily.

 _There's dignity and strength in this one…_

"How are your dreams, Dru?" he asked the boy. "Do you dream of Sul Van?"

"He saved Krypton," Dru replied. "He stopped the Civil War, and saved our Race."

"Yes, he did. I'm asking you this one question. _How_ did he do it?"

"He saw it," the boy answered immediately.

"And…what do _you_ see?"

Zor El saw the exact moment when his question hit the boy.

 _And hit him it did, like a thrown rock to the head…_

Pupils dilated, body stiffening…

El caught the boy before he fell, cradling him in his arms.

 _It's happening too soon. You're too young for this…_

Holding on to Dru with one arm, he pushed a button, and a shelf rolled out from one of the white walls.

He laid the boy on the white marble-like slab, and pressed all the right buttons.

 _A timed inhibitor, to suppress the prescience for a set term of years…_

 _Forty years._

El caressed the little face, brushing black hair back.

"I have a son too," El murmured. "His name is Jor, Son of El. And maybe, in proper time, you and he shall become friends, and heal Krypton, as you did once before."

Only three people knew the truth about Dru Zod. Zor El, En Kay, and Lor Zod.

 _He isn't of the House of Zod at all._

Dru was a clone, his genes harvested almost thirty-five thousand years ago.

 _When the Savior of Krypton was murdered on the orders of the Council of Krypton…_

Sul Van.


	2. Chapter 2

_Krypton_

 _Aboard the Winged Victory_

The Skree must have thought Krypton would be easy pickings…

General Dru Zod knew the trope.

 _The elder, decadent civilization falling to the younger, stronger one…_

Zod smiled grimly as he wiped the blood from a gash to the left temple.

 _Not today…_

"Are you all right, Sir?" Sub Commander Faora Ul ran up.

The explosion had killed two of Zod's people.

"I'm fine, Faora." Zod stood, staring at the view screen.

The Skree…

There were too many of them; and Zod's head ached, his vision pulsing…strobing…

He felt odd…

 _Sir, we have Phantom Drive back online…_

He… _heard_ Faora Ul's voice say the words. But she was here, in front of him; listening to someone down in Engineering…

Then, she looked up.

"Sir," she said. "We have Phantom Drive back online…Sir?"

Zod glanced back to the view screen. His vision flickered.

 _Attack Pattern Alpha…Enemy evades…Attack Pattern Beta…Enemy evades…_

All the possible attack formations flitted through Zod's mind, all the Skree's possible responses.

"Attack Pattern, Rao's Blessing!" Zod ordered.

" _Rao's Blessing?"_

"Do it, Faora!"

"Yes, Sir!"

Zod took the Helm himself; readied weaponry.

The new formation caught the Skree ships off guard, and they moved to cover, leaving sudden, minute vulnerabilities…

"Fire along Z-axis, and Y-axis!" Zod ordered the surviving ships of his fleet.

Kryptonian las-cannon struck their targets in all the right places, and what initially looked like certain defeat for the Kryptonian fleet now became victory.

A complete route for the enemy.

 _Krypton is saved…_

Zod brought a hand up, to his forehead.

 _If only I knew how I did that…_

In that brief moment, he had _seen_ what would happen. He had watched, as his mind unfolded hundreds of attack strategies, how they each would work…

 _Like a…tactical computer…_

 _Jor El will find that fascinating…_

…..

Jor El was still in mourning over the death of his Father, Zor El. As part of his new status as Head of House El he had received ownership of all of the House El files; which included all of the work done by all of the previous House Heads.

 _All of my Father's files…_

Zor El had been a secretive man. Perhaps to the point of paranoia.

Jor El looked at the files, awe and excitement flickering along his nerves.

 _I am finally to learn what my Father was up to all these years…_

Jor El hoped to learn much from accessing those files.

Jor, himself, had a reputation for thinking outside of the box. But Zor El…

His was the kind of brain that went, _Wait…There's a box?_

Learning from that giant mind had been a blessing, a gift…

Now, he was looking through his late father's files.

One, addressed to him personally, caught his eye. He opened it.

A vid of his father looked at him.

 _Hello, Jor El,_ the man on the screen said. _If you are watching this, I am no longer among the living._

 _Most of my work, I am sure you are already building upon, with the brilliance of mind that is your wont._

 _But there is one thing you don't know. One thing you must know. Many years ago, I did a very criminal thing._

 _No, Jor. You weren't conceived, or born naturally. I willingly leave that particular blasphemy to you and Lara; and wish you well of it._

 _When I was quite young, years before you were born, I became aware of a horrendous fact._

 _Krypton is dying._

 _I don't mean that figuratively. I mean it in the most literal sense of the word. So I shall repeat myself._

 _Krypton is dying._

 _After the Civil War, Krypton pulled back. Krypton veiled its eyes, and turned inward, abandoning the universe, abandoning…everything._

 _Now, we…the people of Krypton, are dying. As a culture. As a race._

Zor El bowed his head, then looked back up, hands resting on the desk he stood at; his favorite lecturing pose. He continued.

 _The Civil War had obviously scarred the collective psyche of our people, so I set out to find the cause of the War. What I found…_

Zor El shook his head slightly.

 _It wasn't a Civil War. It had never been a Civil War. It was an invasion. An Alien Invasion. A species we had never met before; and, Prime willing, may we never meet it again…_

Jor El's head spun as he listened to his father.

A Black Oil that possessed its victims, making them… _Alien._

Others that could shift their shape, look like your best friend.

 _They invaded us from within, Jor,_ Zor El continued. _Only one man saved us. The histories say he was a warrior priest of Rao Ascendant. But he was far more than that. He was of the Gifted…_

Jor El frowned at that. History said the _Gifted_ were a genetic aberration; the… _gifts_ they manifested, _psi, mind over matter,_ and suchlike, were abhorred; debasements of the Kryptonian mind.

The last Gifted had been killed millennia ago.

But his own Father seemed to be saying that Sul Van had been a Gifted.

Sul Van, Savior of Krypton. A Gifted.

 _I know what you're thinking, Jor,_ the man on the screen said. _Sul Van, our Savior. Savior of Krypton. How can the Savior of Krypton be Aberrant?_

 _He was prescient, able to see the future; and he used his Gift to forge a path of survival for his people, for us. And how did we thank him for it?_

 _We poisoned him. Not you and I personally, of course. But our ancestors were there. El and Zod were there, along with the Ruling Council._

 _We were complicit, Jor, in the killing of this great man. But his body was preserved, and kept in the Great Catacomb._

Again, Zor El bowed his head.

 _I went there, Jor. I went to Sul Van's Tomb, and I opened it, and looked down upon the perfectly preserved remains. I swear, he seemed to be merely asleep. And that was when I committed my crime. I…stole from him. Stem cells and blood. I made a clone._

 _Sul Van lives and walks among us, and you know him well._

 _You know him as Dru Zod._


	3. Chapter 3

_What is happening to me,_ General Dru Zod asked himself as he walked down to the Council Room, to inform the Ruling Council of his victory over the Skree.

The Council already knew, of course. This was a mere formality.

But Zod had learned, long ago, that the forms must always be obeyed, that they conveyed meaning far beyond the simple announcement of victory.

 _Krypton Lives…_

That had been the Watchword ever since the Great Civil War.

 _Krypton Lives_

That would have been enough for Zod; that his people lived, and were victorious.

But he had been having odd dreams lately, about being someone else, about being…a Professor…at some sort of institution.

It wasn't the Academy. Zod had taught at the Academy plenty of times, so nothing odd about being an instructor.

In the dream, it was different though…

He wasn't lecturing on military tactics and strategy.

 _Religion…and philosophy..?_

There was no religion on Krypton anymore, all the temples repurposed for Technics.

Philosophy, too, was no longer taught to the masses.

Everyone had been engineered to fit specific social castes; their education likewise engineered to prepare the Kryptonian people for their specific duties.

It was only the Elite-scions of the Great Houses that had survived the Civil War almost thirty thousand years ago-who received philosophy in their education.

 _Some more than others…_

The House of El was notorious for cramming as much education into its heirs as possible.

The House of Zod generally paid less attention to philosophy; mostly concentrating on military tactics, strategy, and mathematics.

Dru, however, had received a level of education more in common with the House of El.

His Sire, Lor Zod, had told him he wanted Dru to _learn how to think._

So, after all the classes required of a child of the Warrior Caste, Dru had been privately tutored by Jor El, who was ten years his senior.

And, as Dru grew up to adulthood, he became Jor El's friend.

He also became the finest military mind of his generation, and the youngest general in Kryptonian history.

But he was still having those odd dreams…

 _He stands before the class, and he can hear his own voice as he speaks to the young students, lecturing on the mystical elements of the Imperial Cult of the Sun God Rao…_

 _His hair is long, almost down to his shoulders, and the priestly robes feel natural to him, as if he has worn them his entire life._

But Dru Zod wasn't a priest. There were no priests on Krypton. Not since the Great Civil War.

…..

Jor El was fairly busy these days; what with his more or less constant attempts to revitalize Krypton, to keep the decline his father had seen from happening.

His Comm buzzed. Irritated, El looked at the white screen, at the ID.

 _Dru?_

"Jor here," he replied. "What's up, Dru?"

"The sky, the ceiling," Dru Zod's voice replied, that old joke he and Jor had shared when Dru was just a kid.

"I need to talk to you," Zod's voice sounded a little stressed.

"Sure," Jor El began to put his work away. "How long will it take for you to come over?"

"Around fifteen minutes."

"I'll pour the wine."

True to his word, Dru Zod's personal transport arrived at the El Domicile's Docking Bay fifteen minutes later.

Most members of the Warrior Caste were knows to be almost obsessively punctual.

But… _something_ was wrong. It was clear in the set of Zod's shoulders, in the stress lines at the corners of his mouth.

"Dru…" the two men were sitting at Jor's Living Room table, goblets of a dry white wine in hand.

"What's wrong, Dru?"

Zod sighed, head lowered. When he lifted his head, there was fear in his eyes.

"I think I'm losing my mind, Jor."

…..

"I think I'm losing my mind, Jor…"

It had been so hard to admit that…

The dreams had been so odd…frightening.

 _As if I'm someone else entirely…_

Zod had never had dreams like that before. Until now, all his dreams had been about being what he _was_ ; a member of the Warrior Caste, and of the House of Zod.

They had been dreams of armor and weapons.

But…this…

 _A Priest of Rao Ascendant…_

There hadn't been a Priest of Rao Ascendant in thirty thousand years.

"Dru…" Jor El, so patient. "What's wrong?"

So Dru Zod told him.

About the dreams, about how reality sometimes seemed to…waver…become more than one…

"It's almost as if I can see many different realities, Jor, and choose the one I want. That's how we defeated the Skree…Jor?"

Jor El had sat there, perfectly expressionless, as Zod spoke. Then, he shook himself slightly.

"It's all right, Dru…" the older man finally said. "We'll figure this out. Have you told anyone else about this?"

"No. I've been too afraid to."

"Good," Jor El sighed. "It's probably nothing. You've been through a lot of stress lately, what with the Skree. But you trounced them properly, so they won't be back for a while. If ever. So take things easy for a bit, all right?"

Feeling…helpless…Zod nodded too. Maybe Jor El was right.

 _Prime knows, I'm tired…_

Maybe a little rest would do the trick.

…..

A few hours later, after Dru Zod had gone back to his Domicile, with the promise that he would call Jor El if anything else happened.

Sighing deeply, Jor El went back to his files, the ones he had inherited from his father, Jor El; the files on Sul Van, and Dru Zod.

He found one file, another vid tape of Zor El.

 _Dru turned six years old today. He went prescient during my examination of him. Apart from the very real danger of his origins being discovered, there is also the fact that he is far too young to handle this…gift right now._

 _I have accordingly installed an Inhibitor, with a limited term of effect. I have decided to program it to last about thirty years. Dru will be thirty-five when the device stops its inhibiting effect. I hope Dru will have the sense to call upon Jor when he needs help…_

Jor El sighed as the vid came to an end.

 _Prescience. And maybe even more, if Dru's dreams are anything to go by…_

Sul Van had been a Priest of Rao Ascendant.

Was it possible Dru Zod was beginning to remember his previous life as Sul Van?


End file.
